Bill Belichick swears off tablets. 'I can't take it anymore.'

Tuesday

Oct 18, 2016 at 2:36 PM

By Rich Garven@RichGarvenTG

The NFL introduced tablets for coaches and players to use on the sidelines during games to study formations and plays in 2014. The tablets replaced the time-tested format of studying black-and-white photos organized in a binder.

On Sunday, coach Bill Belichick ditched the new technology and went old school in the Patriots’ win over the Cincinnati Bengals at Gillette Stadium. Two days later, he confirmed that’s the way it would be from now on.

“As you probably noticed, I’m done with the tablets,” Belichick said Tuesday in a conference call. “I’ve given them as much time as I can give them. They’re just too undependable for me. I’m going to stick with pictures as several of our other coaches do as well because there just isn’t enough consistency in the performance of the tablets, so I just can’t take it anymore.”

Belichick also -- for the seemingly umpteenth time -- expressed his frustration with the communication systems that allow coaches on the sideline to communicate with those in the press box and with the quarterback and defensive signal-caller on the field.

“Those fail on a regular basis,” Belichick said. “There are very few games that we play, home or away, day, night, cold, hot, preseason, regular season, postseason, it doesn’t make any difference; there are very few games where there aren’t issues in some form or fashion with that equipment. And, again, there’s a lot of equipment involved, too.”

One issue Belichick cited is the league hands the communication devices over to each team a few hours before kickoff.

“This is all league equipment, so we don’t have it,” he said. “I mean we use it, but it isn’t like we have the equipment during the week and we can work with it and ‘OK, this is a problem. Let’s fix this.’ That’s not how it works.”

Earlier this season Belichick was caught on camera slamming down a sideline tablet following a Bills touchdown.